Newsdesigner.com | A Code of Ethics

A Code of Ethics

12:54 PM, February 9, 2006

The Society for News Design is drafting a code of ethics for visual journalism, and they're looking for comment. Former prez Bill Gaspard is coordinating responses, which can be sent to sndethics@yahoo.com. Leave a comment here, too, while you're at it.

The Society for News Design's Proposed Code of Ethical Standards
Preamble: As members of the Society for News Design, we have an obligation to promote the highest ethical standards for visual journalism -- for all journalism -- as they apply to the values of accuracy, fairness, honesty, inclusiveness, and courage.

Accuracy

Accuracy is the indispensable value in journalism and must not be compromised. We must deliver error-free content, across all our media platforms. We must ensure that our content is a verifiable representation of the news and of our subjects. We promise never intentionally to mislead those who depend upon us for public service. We will correct errors promptly and prominently. We must be as accurate with our colleagues as we are with our audiences.

Honesty

We value original thought and expression. Our work will be free from fraud and deception -- that includes plagiarism and fabrication. We will attribute content and honor copyrights. We will strive to keep news content free of special interests, inside or outside the news organization. We embrace the value of transparency, disclosing the thinking behind key decisions -- from a credit line up to an editor's note on the front page.

Fairness

We must be scrupulously fair. We recognize that our work can have great impact on the subjects we cover and therefore we must respectfully balance that against the public's need to know. Even when it is impossible to avoid harm in the pursuit of truth telling, we will work hard to minimize that harm. We will listen to our critics. Our judgment in these matters must be based on our sense of right and wrong in a manner consistent with our professional values.

Inclusiveness

We will remain vigilant in our quest to combat prejudice and lead needed reforms. We will avoid stereotypes in reporting, editing, presentation, and hiring. Diversity, broadly defined, will be a hallmark of our work. We accept the responsibility to understand our communities and to overcome bias with coverage that is representative of the constituent groups in the community. Over time, all groups, lifestyles, and backgrounds should see themselves and their values represented in the news.

Courage

Journalists need moral and, at times, physical courage to fulfill their responsibility to serve the public. It takes courage to stand behind values such as accuracy, honesty, fairness and inclusiveness. Such courage is necessary to achieve personal integrity and build credibility. This includes the courage to step beyond rigid boundaries. We must test conventional thinking explore innovative story-telling to help changing audiences understand an increasingly complex world.

Logic and literalness, objectivity and traditional thinking have their important place, but so must imagination and intuition, responsible creativity and empathy.

Comments

Heads up: After you hit "post" things may be slow and you may get an error. Most likely, your comment did post. Apologies. I'm looking for a fix.

Possibily something of a tangent here, but is this code of ethics going to address people ripping off other people's designs? Just wanted to throw it out there.

Posted by: Josh at February 10, 2006 8:37 AM

Hi Josh,

Ripping off others is sometimes obvious, but it can also be a very tricky area. But it is something we will address. Under "Honesty" is a line that says "Our work will be free from fraud and deception -- that includes plagiarism and fabrication."

This code will speak to principles on a broad level. We'll get down to some detail through case studies and theoretical examples. Those will be presented later through sessions at SND and other journalism events, SND publications and our website. This second piece is something we're working on now, but we wanted to get comments on the code itself as soon as possible.

If anyone has any examples or specific question in this area (or any area addressed in the code), please let me know and we'll try to address some of those as we prepare our supporting material.

Thanks.

Posted by: Bill Gaspard at February 10, 2006 11:11 AM

Sounds like this is going to be more of an ethics manual (which I'm certainly not complaining about) that bolsters the code. I like the code, incidentally. Here's a thought -- should adherence to the code be a requirement of SND membership?

Posted by: Douglas E. Jessmer at February 10, 2006 5:20 PM

Doug. If that were to become seriously considered, it would have my support.

Posted by: Josh Crutchmer at February 11, 2006 11:01 PM

The idea is this: the ethics code will be a binding document for members of SND. But more than that, it's something to be a starting point for discussions in newsrooms and elsewhere about ethics in visual editing. The case studies which will accompany the final version of the code will be illustrations, essentially, of how ethical decision making is part of what we do every day.

Posted by: Steve at February 12, 2006 2:04 PM

Newspapers are in a fight for their life right now - how is this little 'me too' diversion going to help make your paper more relevant to readers?

'Me Too' meaning other professional journalism associations are diminishing their committment to innovation, investments in imagination, peer-to-peer discourse and in-depth training opportunites.
So why instead of building a moral community through these effective techniques are they instead focusing on this old school ten commandments route?

You know - much of the provisions for enforcement is already in place. Thanks to site's like this.

Newsdesigner is a great inocculation to the kinds of visual fraud that takes place by exposing them under the klieg lights. If you copy your neighbor's homework, misrepresent a clown for a citizen, fake a war or tsunami photo or anything else that does harm to the profession - you are OUTED buster and hopefully out of a job. Is all this flowing from that little logo on Gi-normous NASCAR graphic?

Get with the times. Sad to say it but this exercise smells of 'Legacy-bulding' by some former SND leaders.

Posted by: Out of touch at February 14, 2006 5:08 PM

Dear anonymous poster,

Insert my standard rant here that if you don't have the stones to put your name to criticism, then you're a coward.

But to address what you're posting specifically -- you act as if developing an ethics code is exclusive of anything else you mention.

Wrapping yourself in the mantra of making "your paper more relevant to readers" is just as shortsided and useless as theorists who spend all day in an ivory tower pontificating without actually doing journalism.

Spare me the righteous indignation.

Posted by: Steve at February 16, 2006 5:00 PM

We've long needed a news design ethics code, I think ... and cheers to Bill Gaspard for getting this done.

A lot of powerful newspaper people make poor decisions when it comes to ethics in visuals. This code will *start* discussions, not end them, because finally designers who try desperately to shore up their papers' credibility will have something solid to back them up. In writing. Something that speaks for the best in our profession.

Posted by: dave at February 17, 2006 12:59 AM

Hi all...

Just looking for anyone who might have a specific example of a situation to explore as we develop the supporting materials. We've had people ask about product placement shots (totally unrelated to Layne's NASCAR graphic mentioned above, which was absolutely not the catalyst for this code), 3D renderings in news graphics that add detail that couldn't be known -- just to name a couple.

Appreciate any and all comments -- even those that think this is mostly nonsense and legacy building.

So post here or send to sndethics@yahoo.com. Thanks much for your insights.

Posted by: Bill Gaspard at February 27, 2006 10:34 AM

galling Tarrytown cornea Algenib octane!railing lecturer:gardeners,

Posted by: at July 19, 2008 12:35 PM

thoughtless,enablers outlawed alter pragmatically?.

Posted by: gmac homeowners insurance at August 12, 2008 3:07 AM

Post a comment